WASHINGTON DC - The White House and gun control supporters are gearing up for a whirlwind month, with plans to pass reform legislation before outrage over the Sandy Hook massacre has a chance to fade.

While the fiscal cliff has dominated Washington’s attention in recent weeks, lawmakers and activists are laying the groundwork for their big push. Vice President Joe Biden, tasked with heading a commission to investigate gun violence, has been quietly meeting with experts, interest groups, and public officials and is expected to release a set of recommendations within weeks. Boston mayor Thomas Menino, co-chair of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told the Boston Herald this week that an optimistic Biden had assured him that Obama would sign legislation “by the end of January.”

“We had been led to believe their report would come by end of January, but we’re hearing they may want to have something out by January 15, even quicker than expected,” Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told TPM.

House Democrats are moving ahead with their own plans as well. On Friday, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), chair of the newly created Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, announced the appointment of 12 vice chairs, including Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), the body’s leading voice on gun control. According to a Democratic aide, the group plans to release its recommendations in early February and is already organizing public hearings on the issue. (more)

“Simply coming up with one or two aspects of it really falls short of the magnitude of the gun issue in the country,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum.

But the stark reality is: we don’t have a gun issue in this country.

Homicide ranks #15 in causes of death in this country, and gun-related homicides account for about 2/3 of all homicides.

Gun-related homicides account for approximately 2% of all deaths in the country. From state to state, regardless of strictness of gun-control laws, gun-related homicides account for 1-3% of all deaths.

Passing stricter gun-control laws will not reduce the incidence of gun-related homicides. But, as we all know: reducing the incidence of gun-related homicides is not their objective. Rather, their objective is the dismantling of the second amendment.

More from the same article, detailing some of the gun-control efforts being proposed:

A working group led by Vice President Biden is seriously considering measures backed by key law enforcement leaders that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, strengthen mental health checks, and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors, the sources said…

“They are very clearly committed to looking at this issue comprehensively,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who has been involved in the discussions. The proposals under consideration, he added, are “a deeper exploration than just the assault-weapons ban.”…

In addition to potential legislative proposals, Biden’s group has expanded its focus to include measures that would not need congressional approval and could be quickly implemented by executive action, according to interest-group leaders who have discussed options with Biden and key Cabinet secretaries. Possibilities include changes to federal mental-health programs and modernization of gun-tracking efforts by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“Simply coming up with one or two aspects of it really falls short of the magnitude of the gun issue in the country,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum…

Biden “wanted to talk to us about the assault-weapons ban, automatic weapons, high-capacity magazines,” said Hennepin County (Minn.) Sheriff Richard Stanek, president of the Major County Sheriffs’ Association.

The vice president said the White House group would consider a variety of proposals — from requiring background checks for all gun buyers to creating a new database that would allow the ATF to track all gun sales, according to participants.

Stanek said the meeting also included significant discussion of mental-health issues, violence in video games and movies, and the poor quality of information contained in databases used to conduct criminal background checks before issuing gun permits…

With the start of the 113th Congress last week, several lawmakers filed bills to address gun violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who co-wrote a 1994 assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004, plans to introduce legislation this month that would ban the sale or manufacture of about 120 firearms, including semiautomatic rifles and military-style handguns, as well as ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds…

“We can’t put all our protection-effort eggs in one basket with one piece of legislation,” he said. “We’ve got to do more than that.”

I still believe we’ll win, but I am markedly less certain of Boehner’s backbone after the fiscal cliff surrender, and it is clear that their plan is to overwhelm our resolve by proposing a thousand paper cuts, rather than tackle everything in one, fell swoop.

I think the Feinstein bill is a feint. It puts everything in one bill, intentionally to get defeated, and give second-amendment advocates a false sense of victory/security. But either concurrently with or immediately following her bill, the gun grabbers will be trying to get all the same measures passed through Congress through a couple dozen other bills.

They think that just because their side gets impatient and forgetful after a few weeks, that our side will, too. They think that they can overwhelm our resolve with a flood of battles to fight – and yet, they forget that we kicked their rear ends when they tried that same strategy with the public-sector union fights in Wisconsin.

from requiring background checks for all gun buyers to creating a new database that would allow the ATF to track all gun sales, according to participants.

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So in essence making it a crime for us to sell, trade or gift our personal property and have a national gun registry, but even better for them than that because then they could put us on a list, Chip bought 2 rifles, a handgun and 100 rounds of ammo this year, we need to pay him a visit, he’s obviously planning to commit mass murder.
All this information in the hands of the same people who armed criminals and were going to try and frame the dealers. So that scenario in my mind doesn’t sound so far off.

All this information in the hands of the same people who armed criminals and were going to try and frame the dealers. So that scenario in my mind doesn’t sound so far off.

Yes, and these proposals, presented as ostensibly not an inherent infringement on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, from the same people who have argued vociferously that obtaining a state-issued, photo ID is an unconstitutional impediment to the right to vote.

Why are we enabling THEM to focus the debate on “gun homicides?” rather than HOMICIDES? Is a murder unworthy of concern if the perpetrator doesn’t use a gun? I had a brother murdered back in 1989 by a robber who insisted on stealing a garbage can. The thug killed him by intentionally running him down with a Dodge van. The robber intentionally bumped my brother repeatedly to knock him down, then once he was stuck under the van he accelerated, leaving a fifty foot long trail of skin and blood and flesh and bone ground into the pavement. My brother dies from what was clinically described as a “flail chest injury”, which means his rib cage was literally torn open. The paramedics testified during the trial that the injury was so horrific that they were actually able to watch his heart as it stopped beating. Is his death any less of a crime because he wasn’t shot to death?

This might explain why I get frustrated and ANGRY at the people in this forum who pontificate about gun technology to demonstrate their intellectual superiority over the gun grabbers. It is all the more enraging because the focus of the debate should be on murdered children! As I have posted before, the FBI’s detailed data on homicides reveals that while most homicides in this country are committed with firearms, the vast majority of homicides of young children are not. Most murderred children die from being brutally beaten, bludgeoned, burned, strangled and stabbed to death. Why in the he’ll are WE allowing THEM to ignore the vast majority of child homicides so that they can focus the debate on GUNS? Aside frm being an abysmally stupid strategy, it is ILMORAL!

The same consideration applies to the Brady Campaign’s grossly offensive new add about a rape lasting only thirty seconds (this certainly confirms my hypothesis that gun grabbers suffer from a Freudian phobia of firearms that results from their sexual inadequacies) but a murder being forever. The FBI data reveals that the vast majority of rape victims are not killed with guns. Rapists almost always choose to kill their victim by beating, bludgeoning, burning, strangling and stabbing them. I guarantee you that the rapists choose to prolong the vast majority of these terrifying and horrific deaths far beyond thirty seconds because doing so asserts their dominance over their victim. Rather than may be go to the link on the FBI website to get a screenshot of the chart to post here to give your readers some USEFUL information that could transform the debate so it focuses on rape victims rather than guns, you get offended by my being too assertive about it. You people are willing to enable the gun grabbers to assert that murdered children and murdered rape victims are unworthy of concern as long as they aren’t killed with guns. You then get offended by my post on another thread in which I conceded that normal men invariably appraise women’s sexual attractiveness but choose to treat them either respectfully or disrespectfully based on a host of other factors.

I am amazed that you people can get angry at the Progressives for being PC.

Yep, the feet on the furniture worries me too, and the chair leaning back. Considering his Mother was a whore and no Daddy to speak of…Well that wouldn’t automatically make him a dis-respectable slob but in his case he is.
I’m not so sure that’s not an old pic i have seen before but he does like to wipe his feet on our furniture. He has enough hatred for us to have us killed and throw a party after to celebrate. Gotta get them guns. After that there ours! Were really in a fix here. Maybe China Korea even Iran might do us a favor…

So they want to protect the population from death or injury without violating the Constitution. The US averages around 7500 Homicides a year by firearm with around 60,000 reported shootings. In the same year we will average 40,000 motor vehicle deaths from around 6 million accidents with hundreds of thousands of injuries. The majority of the vehicle deaths and severe injuries are due to head, neck or chest trauma. Although there is a Constitutional right to own firearms, there is none for operating a vehicle on public highways. If we just mandated that the drivers and passengers in every vehicle were required to wear a full face helmet, ballistic chest protection, a full 4 point restraint with a roll bar, and a NASCAR style neck brace, we would probably save more innocent lives each year than are taken by firearms each year. Those lives saved would range from infant to elderly. Liberals enjoy saying ” if it just saves 1 life ” or ” think of the children”. Well this would save 10’s of thousands each year. People would retain the ability to travel at will. They would still be allowed to posses their ” assault vehicles ” with their deadly ” high capacity engines” and this mandate would not infringe on a single Constitutional right.
A law such as this would never work. It is to restrictive and the general public would throw fits if it were passed. Yet politicians wish to inflict more severe restictions on a Constitutional right in order to save far fewer lives. This gun control movement was never about protecting life, it has always been about one of the politicians highest priorities, control.

“Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
George Washington First President of the United States

Wait….according to the GOP the media is going to go after Obama on spending. It is going to be wall to wall coverage in the media. Attacking Obama and the Democrats. That is why they passed fiscal cliff thought. Not about abolishing the 2nd Amendment.